About book Japanese Tales Of Mystery & Imagination (1989)
Although I'm not an avid reader of Poe, many of these stories do resonate with the dark aura that his stories had. I can concur with what I heard about other authors injecting more of Japanese culture, tradition, and philosophy into their detective fiction versus Rampo's stories that borrow places, names, but still feel very vague and not entirely "Japanese". It might alienate those looking for something with a tinge of Japanese culture but certainly welcomes the reader worldwide who are just looking for great tales of fiction. Rampo seems to tackle two kinds of stories here, that of the supernatural and fantastic and that of the kind of dark, detective noir or suspense story that stays rooted in reality, although a rather gruesome and horrific one. His detective stories are fairly decent but did not stand out to me as being anything truly memorable(The Psychological Test, The Twins). The others were a little more suspenseful and dealt with the dark and macabre: a man murdering out of boredom in The Red Chamber and a sleep walking murderer in Two Crippled Men, both stories that were slightly memorable but still did not leave me entirely moved(Two Crippled Men ended quite cleverly but the ending dragged on, making the effect wear out in an instant). The Cliff was suspenseful but rather cliche. His strength in storytelling truly lies in the stories that explore the supernatural and the unknown. A man's obsession with mirrors in the Hell of Mirrors instantly recalled the film version I saw so long ago. His obsession instantly recalled Junji Ito's "Uzumaki" manga in the hoarding and obsessing of a certain object and recalled what I read about the Japanese belief in mirrors being escapes into an alternate reality(something I believe is outlined best in the film but not this story). The Human Chair was disturbing and its ending will stay with me for a long time. The Caterpillar has been done in films more than once and to read its original was worthwhile. I felt the film version by the late Koji Wakamatsu expounded on this source material profoundly, filling in elements that weren't there while still respecting Rampo's original work. The film focused moreso on the extreme nationalism alive in Japan during the second world war and readers of the story may find Rampo's original to take a more different course that focuses more on the disturbing subject of the story rather than the political landscape of the country at the time. The Traveler with the Pasted Rag Picture was an interesting dark fairy tale of the modern age. More tales like this should have been included. I felt it's place at the end of the book was a little weak since it did not have a lot of power or suspense like the other stories nor did it feel utterly disturbing or extreme, but it did give me hope that at the end of the barrage of mediocre mystery and detective tales that Rampo may still have a many worlds he has constructed that I have yet to discover, but will soon when I seek out his other writings available in English. If you are looking at Rampo as an icon of Japanese fiction there are a good number of stories(most that I have outlined above) that will please your appetite for this prolific mystery writer and for those that are just obsessed with detective fiction and the macabre you may also feel that Rampo's writing does not alienate those unfamiliar with Japanese culture and customs. I could recommend it to either camp but in the end, the reader will probably feel like the stories aren't all alike and delve deep into other genres, so they may find some pieces they really dislike. Still, worth a shot; it's a short read and you can pick and choose!
Having just finished off The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, I wasn't quite ready to fully return to the world of novels. Luckily this book was recommended for this month's book club read and very perfectly the author's name is a pseudonym, a play on Edgar Allan Poe. Say it out loud: Edogawa Rampo. Get it?These stories are certainly not as gruesome as some of Poe's, and they're certainly not as long as some of Poe's either. But these are good too, in their own right. If nothing else, they're a lot of fun to read. I don't know if I've ever read any Japanese short stories, and I know I've never read any Japanese short stories along these lines, so this was a good experience as well. They weren't as creepy as I would have liked - they bordered on sort of simplistic by the time the stories ended, many had convenient endings - not quite "and it was all just a dream" but similar feelings of copping out.But these stories do focus on the duplicity of human nature, the psychology, and occasionally the psychoses. In other words, they weren't too far of a stretch. I could see situations like many of these actually happening. Which is, after all, where the true creepiness comes in.For the book club it was recommended that The Human Chair, The Caterpillar, and The Hell of Mirrors be the three people read for discussion. But I'm an overachiever and read them all because they're short stories and enjoyable to boot. Out of the three suggested for book club, The Human Chair was the most interesting to me, but the others were also good.A note on the translation, from the introduction:Edogawa Rampo, while fully capable of reading and understanding English, lacks the ability to write or speak it. On the other hand, the translator, a Eurasian of English-Japanese parentage, while completely fluent in spoken Japanese, is quite unable to read or write the language, as he was educated solely in English schools. Hence, for each line translated, the two collaborators, meeting once a week for a period of five years, were forced to overcome manifold difficulties in getting every line just right, the author reading each line in Japanese several times and painstakingly explaining the correct meaning and nuance, and the translator sweating over his typewriter having to experiment with sentence after sentence until the author was fully satisfied with what had been set down in English.I love that anecdote. It shows such dedication on both parts to want to bring these stories to a whole new population of readers. I'm sad that these stories aren't better known and more widely read. I don't think it would be inappropriate at all to read a few of these along side of Poe's short stories in schools.
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These nine stories are not horror but often not-quite-not-quite horror, and sometimes are something like mystery tales but with a twist of examining the psychological motivation behind the mystery more than anything like the crime. This combined with an excellent translation by James B. Harris imbues Ranpo's collection with an immediate sense of the classic and a helpful dose of the lurid and pulp. Much like the obvious influence of Edgar Allan Poe, Ranpo [note: Edogawa Ranpo is a play on E.A. Poe's name] is able to dance between melodrama and good story telling quite effortlessly. Notable stories include "The Human Chair", "The Caterpillar", "The Hell of Mirrors", and "The Red Chamber". "The Human Chair" is about a man who builds a chair that allows him to hide inside, and later starts to fall in love [or at least lust] with the women who sit on him and press against him without ever knowing he is there. I've written about it on my blog at http://www.wyrmis.com/blots/2014/30/b..., though that will spoil the ending so you might should read it first. "The Caterpillar" deals with a woman caring for a husband who is missing arms and legs and is death mute, and the name sort of speaks for itself. "The Hell of Mirrors" is a fairly literal title, being a story about a man obsessed with mirrors who eventually engages in an experiment to take it to an extreme."The Red Chamber" is likely the weakest of the four, and suffers from a weak ending, but has a premise of a man who has killed dozens by simple psychological tricks - such as calling out "LOOK OUT!" as the cross the street to make them stumble all the while making it look like he was looking out for them - which is the kind of thing that mystery fans can chew on for days.Despite the weird fiction flavor of many of these, the only story that has any real supernatural bent is "The Traveler with the Pasted Rag Picture". The rest are firmly in the psychological mystery realm, even when they tap into horror motifs. Well recommended.
—Doug
This is apparently the first volume of its kind translated into English way back in 1956. There are nine rather odd stories. Certainly they are unlike similar tales coming out of the West. There is a story of a quadruple amputee and his relationship with his wife. He's a war hero but is effectively a caterpillar now wrapped in his clothes. It's a tragic, terrible tale of two people bound and trapped together.Then we have a very ugly carpenter who makes a chair destined for a hotel. The chair is hollow and he hides himself in it for days at a times, enjoying the feel of the people, especially the women, who sit on him.Another tale has a student planning the perfect murder, 'a psychological murder'. He actually envisions a whole career of such perfection and works very hard at perfecting his technique. Too hard as it turns out.The stories are all very odd and that makes the book an enjoyable read. My only grouse, and it's a small one, is that I often feel as if something is missing or it feels a little wrong. I think it's because of the translation and the fact that perhaps some of the feel does not translate well into the English Language.
—Nesa Sivagnanam
While this wasn't quite as good as I was thinking it was going to be, it was, at times, much weirder. The first story, The Human Chair, was one of the best, but then, at the end of the story, just thrown on in the last couple of paragraphs, you find out it wasn't real, "but don't you think I'm a good writer?" What the fuck? Why would he (the writer) do that? It was great, and would have ended perfectly if he'd just cut off the end. He did the exact same thing later in another story, The Red Cham
—Clint
